Digital maps help gather census data

I thought this was pretty cool!

Geoinformation from space sharpens population density maps

In response to a growing demand for sharpened census data, GeoVille Information Systems has developed ?'real-world population' maps based on Earth observation, under a contract named EO-STAT awarded by ESA, which can assist the private and public sector in fields such as geomarketing, market research, business location analysis, risk assessment and transport and urban planning.

GeoVille, an Austrian company specialising in geo-information, and Tele Atlas, the largest manufacturer of road networks worldwide, are providing detailed models of areas based on road network information, statistical population data - supplied by the German-based market research institute GfK - and Earth observation (EO) images from ESA's Envisat, NASA's LANDSAT and the French Space Agency's SPOT satellites.

Results are then integrated into Tele Atlas' digital geographic database, MultiNet, and can - among other applications - be used to spot the target groups for geomarketing campaigns.

Geomarketing determines consumer profiles according to geographical zones based on market-specific data by using geographical information along with population and economic statistics. Companies can use this information to visualize the geographic location of potential target groups before implementing costly marketing campaigns and to envision future growth on a local or national scale. For instance, this information can be used to strategically choose a heavily-populated area in which to place a business in another country without ever placing a foot in the region.

Whole story: http://www.innovations-report.com/html/reports/earth_sciences/report-58472.html